Night Always Comes
by faberino
Summary: In town for a food and gas run shortly after the burning of LA, James encounters someone in a deserted convenience store. AU


**Prequel to Elegy.**

The door is wedged tightly shut. Stephen and Kendall are talking quietly, several yards away, and James peeks through the glass of the store's door again.

Sometimes he catches himself imagining that's it's stormy and everything is dusty, just like in the movies. But the only thing that's smoking is the cigarette Kendall is puffing on, and it's another disgustingly bright, hot day.

Casting a glance over at the other two, he sighs quietly. He shakes out his left hand, gearing himself up for what he's about to do. Kendall's shirt, which he had cast off earlier, lies a couple feet away, but James doesn't want to draw attention to himself by going and getting it to wrap around his hand. Taking a deep breath, James smashes his hand through the door.

Stephen and Kendall's heads whip in his direction, and James just stands there, eyes screwed up against the pain, fist bloodied and covered in shards of glass. "What the fuck, James?" Kendall starts towards him, throwing his cigarette on the ground.

"I wasn't expecting it to break," he mutters. He sees a flash of dark hair at the back of the store and stills.

"You're an idiot," Stephen informs him, gingerly pulling James' fist from the hole he'd made. "The door clearly says _pull_."

James wrenches his hand away from Stephen. "There's someone in there." Stephen goes pale underneath his sunburn, and Kendall rubs at his chest, eyebrows knitting together. James pulls on the door this time and Kendall grabs him by the back of the shirt.

"James. They could be sick."

He doesn't know what makes him do it, but he removes Kendall's fingers from his shirt. Pulling the mask that's hanging around his neck up over his face, James says, "I've got a mask. We'll disinfect everything we get out of here."

Stephen throws his hands up in disgust. "You're not coming back until we know you're not sick, James. Even if you do disinfect everything." But it's an empty threat. With just the three of them, they are all too afraid to be left alone in this disturbingly empty city.

"I won't get sick," James replies adamantly. "Go look down the street, see if there's any other open places." The door pulls open and James swallows before creeping into the building, Kendall and Stephen's eyes burning holes in his back.

It's dark inside after squinting outside in the sun for so long, and it takes a couple seconds for his eyes to adjust. A part of him wants to look back, make sure the other two are still there, but he squares his shoulders and starts to look around.

His hand is stinging and burning terribly, and he curses his stupidity. It's cooler when he reaches the drink area, and James feels somewhat justified – it's one of the few buildings that still has electricity. They've been pretty lucky, mostly, finding houses that have cool cellars stocked to bursting with water and emergency kits, but it's still a relief to find some place that has Arizona tea.

He smiles and turns toward the door, opening his mouth to call out to his friends, but there's a sudden movement in the corner of his eye and he ducks instinctively. Something pings into the glass door of the cooler, cracking it. "What the fuck," he hisses, scrambling to get behind a shelf.

Neither of his friends have barged in, and James presses himself up against a shelf of two liter bottles, panic fluttering in his chest. For once they've both taken his advice and gone down the street to another place they'd been eying. James wonders, briefly, what Kendall will think when they find him here, shot to death, and he hopes that his friend will avoid his fate.

His hand throbs with every pulse of his frantic heart.

James peers down the aisle, towards the cashier's counter, where he thought the shot had come from. There's no one standing there, of course. He faces towards the drinks again, trying to figure out his next move, and that's when he hears it: a small, distressed sound, like a sob.

"Hello?" he calls out before he can stop himself. There's a clattering, like whoever's over there has dropped a gun. He rolls to his hands and knees, hissing a little when he puts weight on his injured hand. "Whoever you are, I don't – I don't have a gun like you, so don't shoot me." He tries to sound as unintimidating as possible. After what seems like ages, he reaches the counter and puts his back up against it. There's a trail of blood from his hand leading back to the drinks.

He eases himself up into a crouch, gasping when one of the cuts in his hand burns upon contact with his dusty jeans. Shuffling towards the end of the counter and pulling his mask down, he says, softly, soothingly, "I'm gonna come around the counter in a couple seconds, okay? Don't shoot me, please."

Creeping around the corner, James squeezes his eyes shut, preparing for the bullet that will rip through his face at any moment, but it never comes. He cracks an eye open, taking in the girl in front of him. She's watching him, tears tracking mascara down her face and a pistol in her small hands.

"Hey," he manages.

"Hey," she says back. "You're scarier when you stand up."

He cracks a smile, and an answering one spreads across her face, albeit a small one. "I'm James." He sits down slowly, still afraid of spooking this girl. She does have a loaded gun in her hands, after all.

She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. "I'm...I'm Erin." She suddenly leans away from him, fear in her eyes. "You're not sick, are you?"

James shakes his head vehemently. "No. You're not?"

"No," she says. Her lower lip trembles and something in James' chest aches at the sight of this poor girl. She's obviously alone, probably for a while now. He scoots closer to her, cradling his bloody hand to his chest.

Without warning, she throws herself at him, and his head cracks against the cabinet. Her breasts press his hand between them painfully and he whimpers quietly, but it's covered up by Erin's sobs. They're great, big, shuddering sobs, the kind that speak of being alone for days and days in a world that's literally in flames. He holds her as best he can, pain shooting up through his left arm every time she gasps for air.

Maybe five minutes go by and she's quieted down, her nose pressed hard into the crook of his neck. He's very aware, suddenly, of the fact that he hasn't showered in at least a week. "I'm sorry," she murmurs, settling more fully into his lap. He grunts and moves his hand from between them. It feels hot and it's very visibly swollen. "Did you do that when you punched in the door?"

He bites his tongue when she reaches out to take his hand in hers. "Yep."

"Do your friends have a first aid kit?" He shakes his head no, figuring she'll feel it. Now that the adrenaline of being fired at is beginning to fade, he feels shaky and light-headed. She leans forward to open one of the cabinets across the way, her ass pressing into his crotch.

Then Erin's back in his lap, holding a box with a red cross on it. She roots around in it for a few moments, withdrawing a small white bottle of peroxide. "Oh god," he groans, knowing what's going to happen. "This is gonna blow."

"Sorry." And it burns, it fucking burns. His faces screws up painfully tight, his fingers curl in and his knees feel like they're going to break from tension. Choked, animal sounds fight their way past his clenched teeth. But Erin's hands stay on his, cool on his heated skin, hushing him. He knocks his head on the cabinets a couple more times before the agony finally recedes. It still throbs when Erin wraps it up as best she can in the gauze from the kit.

"_Fuck_," he says, with feeling.

She pats his wrist. "It has to hurt to heal."

James is definitely awake now. "I need to get going, the guys I'm with will be looking for me soon." She rolls off and away from him, helping him stand.

"What do you need?" she calls over her shoulder as she walks down the aisle with cat food. He beats her to the drinks, pulling open the door with the bullet hole in it. "Arizona tea?" Her tone is incredulous, and he shrugs as he unloads all of the cans in the cooler. She helps with the last few, placing them all on the shelf with the two-liters.

He leans against the door, shutting it. Erin looks up at him, an appraising look in her eyes. "Can I come with you guys?" She toys with the corner of a shelf but doesn't take her eyes off him. "I don't want to be left alone again."

"How long have you been here?"

Her eyes finally fall away. "Maybe a week. I've been wandering since the fires, though."

He whistles lowly. It's been at least a month. A girl as small as her, on her own, for such a long time? "I think you could handle it."

"Where do you and your friends live?" A strand of hair has fallen from behind her ear, into her face. "In town?"

Shaking his head, he absently reaches out to tuck the hair back behind her ear. "No, we live hours out, in the desert." When he takes his hand away, she takes a step closer.

"How many people?"

"Just three of us." He pulls her closer with his good hand. James isn't sure what's making him feel this way; not horny, exactly, but delivered, somehow. He hasn't seen or heard or touched a girl in months, even before everyone started getting sick and dying. "Four, if you come."

She's starting to rise up on her tiptoes, and he's leaning to meet her halfway when Kendall speaks. "She's not sick, is she?"

Erin whirls around and James whacks his head back on the glass in surprise. "Would I be standing that close to her if she was?" he replies testily, rubbing the back of his head. He'll be lucky to get through this day without another injury, at this rate.

Kendall looks stupidly confused by the situation, and Stephen yells from the doorway, "Let's just go, alright? We've been here for a while. We need to fill up the car before we head back."

Grabbing as many cans of tea as he can, James heads to the front of the store. When he looks back, Erin is following, five or six cans caught in the bowl she's made with her shirt front. Kendall steps in front of her, sizing her up. She looks back at him, unblinking. "I haven't showered in a while," Kendall announces, and James feels like stomping his foot.

She shrugs. "I can tell."

The blonde boy takes a can of tea from her shirt and opens it, taking a monumental slurp. "Just letting you know what you're in for." He leads the way out of the store, Vans crunching on the glass from the door.

"I haven't been outside in so long," she says, squinting and looking around.

"You'll get used to it," he assures her.

Four days later, she's gotten her first sunburn and is lying on top of James in nothing but loose t-shirt of Stephen's, hair piled up on top of her head. He's sweating ferociously where they touch. He can smell the smoke from Kendall's cigarette, wafting back to them from the mouth of their cave.

Crumbs land on his chest from the mini donuts she's eating. "Do you guys ever steal any books?"

He brushes the crumbs away, but some of them get caught in the gauze on his hand. "Mostly we just sleep. Kendall sits and smokes and stares broodingly into the middle distance sometimes."

She grins, bits of donut stuck in her teeth. "You don't have anything to do for entertainment?"

James knows where she's going with this. "Dreaming."

"Night is best for dreaming." She pitches her voice lower, putting her donuts down on the ground above James' head. "It's cooler then."

He kisses her neck, softly. "And the night will always come." She rests her head against his bare and sweaty chest. They wait for night.


End file.
